New York City's 'real' Taxi of Tomorrow

Some New York City cab companies want to turn back the clock on the Taxi of Tomorrow and send it back to the drawing board.

Several fleet operators have filed a lawsuit against the city over a rule that will force them to use the all-new Nissan NV200-based cab starting next year.

The plaintiffs say restricting their choices to one vehicle is unprecedented, and they deride the “untested” Nissan “outdated engineering, the fact that it doesn’t offer a hybrid option, and that replacement parts for the Mexican-made minivan will have to be supplied from outside the United States.

Too bad for them they can’t just travel through time and pick a different car.

Or can’t they?

A team of designers have a possible solution for the cabbies’ conundrum, turning the time-traveling DeLorean from the movie “Back to the Future” into a New York City taxi.

Michael Lubrano and Kimberly Yau have outfitted the iconic sports car with all of the accoutrements a hack needs, including an official NYC Taxi paint job, On/Off Duty light and a set of black steel wheels.

Compared to the Nissan, the DeLorean’s passenger carrying capabilities are well-established. Sure, it can only hold one, but how many Ford Crown Vic’s have safely delivered fares to the Old West?

The durability of the remaining DeLoreans seems up to snuff -- they were first built in the early 1980’s -- and the rights to build official replacement parts are currently held by a company based in Texas, which is about as made in the USA as they come.

As far has the hybrid requirement is concerned, two words: flux capacitor.

Unfortunately, the creation is as phony as those unlicensed cabbies that try to pick you up at the airport. It was an entry in a promotional competition sponsored by Nooka, a fashion house that specializes in 1980’s-inspired futuristic designs. Lubrano and Yau simply took photos of a toy version of the car and gave it a digital, yet very convincing custom job.

Oddly, while they were created in 2010, the images have gone viral it the past few weeks, just in time for this new cab controversy.